Training updates from yesterday

Fly and JJ

I was able to work quite a few dogs yesterday. The day began with setting up the farm for a vet visit, health papers for the sheep and rabies updates for dogs. This weekend we will be in Winterset Iowa to produce stock dog demonstrations. I try to share more later.

After the vet left a good friend, Johnny stopped up to help me load the sorting & head chute and wood gates into the trailer. He has a border collie that I have helped him with and also allows us access to his cattle to train dogs. Anytime he comes up we end up working through the pack, he lets me know what progress he is seeing, not only in with the dogs but with myself.

We began by taking Fly out to the pen, Fly is a little 3 year old spayed female that I took in on trade for Riley from a farmer. She has some drive and feel but lacks confidence, I am hoping to find her either a pet home or a low requirement hobby farm home. I worked with Fly last spring and put some basics on her, she can be handy in the back pens, has some direction on her a stop and a walk up. All I can do with her at this time is continue to use her, and be there to help her.



Next dog in was little Rosy, what a little crackerjack she is at 5 months of age. She just gets to discover what the sheep are all about. She just loves to get them stopped, hold them at balance and then walk right on in, which in turn creates an explosion and it happens all over again. After a couple of repeats all of a sudden she ran backwards just as the explosion began, this resettled the sheep, if she had an expression on her little face it would be priceless....wow, I didn't know I could do that!!!!

Toby at 5 months (Bea x Jake)

Toby was up next, he is Rosy's brother. Toby is more like Jake, and is more careful around the sheep, that is until he get's excited, then he goes to playing and bitting. The opportunity presented itself where I could show Toby that he could get around the outside of the sheep and control them just a effectively as holding them to a fence. He was like a kid with a new toy, all of a sudden this little dog that was a bit hesitant to have the sheep move was driving them and then flanking around to drive them a different way.

Each of these young pups spent just a short amount of time in the pen, just long enough to let them discover some new useful thing they can do, allow it to reinforce and then pick them up and take them out.



Now on to Jake, Jake is the older male that arrived back in August. I've been working him now and then, with my focus on retraining his triggers, and adjusting his pressure sensitive thresh holds. Much of my work with him is just daily encounters out in his kennel. Back up when I walk in, kennel up when I say so, understand that when I growl and bang the soda bottle when you are running a barking that you need to stop and not amp up more. It's amazing how this work away from the stock can improve your relationship while out with stock, so many don't understand just how the two environments intertwine.

"Cow Dog Jake"

Johnny is also very interested in Jake, he is considering crossing his female to him and wanted to see the dog first hand. It was love at first sight, on both of their parts. I was even able to trust Jake enough around the sheep to allow Johnny to take him for a spin. The worse he did was pull wool once when he got in too tight but immediately stopped when Johnny corrected him. I doubt that Jake will ever be a sheep dog, but we really don't want him to be, he was bred to a working cow dog, I just need him to learn that there are other things that I need him to do then just run in and bite stock to make it move, and the sheep are the best training tool to help get the lessons learned. To be completely honest, I think he has been here before, he actually had some training with Ben Means, Ben also is his breeder. His square flanks started to show themselves not long after I began holding him to a higher standard, his complience to his other commands and corrections keep improving also. The pace in which he is improving is too fast for a dog that has never been taught, is more like a dog that has forgotten and feels stongly that he does not need to do it that way.

A note about Ben Means, Ben is a trainer, breeder and the author of a stock dog training book from Oklahoma. He is respected by many in the working dog community, I feel privledged to get the opportunity to work with a dog that he not only bred but also trained as a young dog. As I work with Jake I am running into Ben, I can feel and see his influence on Jake. Each time I work with him more of the dog that Ben was trying to develop reveals himself. Each of us that work with a dog put our mark on that dog. Sometimes what we see years later is not a true representation of the trainers that put their heart and time into that dog early on, the mark has been blurred and covered up. But if it was done right, the mark is still there just waiting to be uncovered and brought back into focus.

This may seem foreign to some, but I've expirenced it before when riding/training horses, the trainers I worked with could "Feel" my training when they rode my horse and then could help me determine if what I was doing/creating is consistent with their training. Each time you run across something that someone else put in that is simular to what you do you will know it, the just knows what to do, or maybe it won't be quite the exact response that you expect but it will be simular. You can then learn from the dog, maybe that other trainer can teach you something through that dog.

Ben (JJ's littermate)

After we returned Jake to his run and got through all the discussion about Jake's future, btw Johnny is willing to dogsit and use Jake to help him with his cattle any day, go figure. We moved on to Chip, an ACD. Johnny didn't see the point of me bringing Chip out letting me know that he really does not like the dog and has never seen him offer anything. Well, Chipper showed him. Working with Jake has helped me to find a way to get through to Chip, Johnny sat there speechless as Chip went to balance, flanked off pressure and eased in toward the sheep stalking like a cat, just to release and flank to balance again. Granted after his little display ended aburptly with an explosion take a hold of a leg that led to a take down, but it's a work in progress, ewe is fine, muzzle went on and we ended on a really good note. I saw some huge gains with Chip in this short little work session, he initiated on his flanks and going to balance on his own, I didn't have to convince him to engage. When I put the muzzle on he continued with the same level of initiation showing that he could still focus on the sheep while dealing with a big distraction.

The last two dogs into the pen were Dixie and Weasel the two Border Collie females that are full sisters to JJ. Both girls are still lack in maturity but both also showed that they are learning. I found a great opportunity to bolster Dixie's confidence in close proximity of the sheep, boy did that change the way she handled herself, it was almost as if a piece of the puzzle fell into place and she suddenly understood something that was escaping her.

Jake and JJ

I mentioned that we will be demonstrations this coming weekend in Winterset, Iowa. We will be leaving first thing Saturday morning, I'm still trying to decide who is going and who is staying home, I'm trying to limit myself to 5 dogs, which will make our return home Saturday alot easier. We leave the sheep down there and then go back Sunday with the dogs again for more demonstrations.

Jake for certain is going, he's the cornerstone to the demonstrations with the ability to show spectators what is possible. Quiet calm work up close, an ability to work out at large distances while processing commands in a fashion that resembles playing a video game and using the joystick to position your player. By no means is he perfect, he's still not a finished dog, heck he won't be finished until the day he retires, just like us our dogs can always improve and learn something new.

I think I'm going to take Bea, she is the dam of Toby and Rosey. I don't have her working at big distances but she is handy working at hand or in small lots, she also has a different way of traveling compared to Jake, more upright and less slinkey.

The third dog is Toby, people always love to see the pups work, he is also the last of our pups that is available for sale.

I think the fourth slot is going to Chip, at this point I don't plan on using him in the demonstrations but he needs to get off the farm and deal with other external pressures. I will give him the chance to engage the sheep sometime during the day, but not while spectators on placing expectations on me or the dog. If he proves that he can handle it the pressure of working away from him he may get the opportunity to strut a little stuff.

Now the fifth hole is the tough one, do I take Weasel, spectators connect with her, you can see in the way she handles herself that an explosion is just under the surface, and I've had her erupt at the first demo we did with her. During the eruption I hear little comments such as "that's what my dog does", and she gave me a great opportunity to show people how to handle it.

Another option is JJ, he is in between Jake and Bea in ability, but I don't think he will help to teach people anything, that Bea or Jake won't already cover.

Yet, another thought is Fly, does Fly and the manner in which I handle her to help her be useful offer anything to spectators. Cow Dog Jake could also go, but I just don't trust him enough yet, if he does break on me and take a ewe to the ground it is not going to be pretty, best to leave him home.

There are few very important things that I look for when I do these demonstrations, the first it to exhibit low stress livestock handling, the second it to demonstrate ways to teach your dog that is not at the expense of the livestocks well being and third is demonstating that there should be a good dialog between you and your dog. All are important to us and we work hard to operate at home the same as we do in public, but we have to remember, there is more pressure on both us and on the dogs when we are away from home. Yes, the dog and we have to learn how to function when exposed, but it is not fair to take a dog that is not ready to handle it. Your just going to set you and the dog up to fail. Each time we set our dogs up to fail they loose faith and trust in our relationships, the decision to put you and your dog out there should not be taking lightly.